One Month in Paraguay

Monday, October 28, 2013

This week was super busy and I am not sure if it was a good busy. We didn't teach a lot of lessons...but poco a poco la obra del Señor es progresando! Haha. I love getting your letters! There is a small problem though. I think I could be allergic to something in the soap here. All the soap. Anyway, everyday after I shower, my legs itch so bad. It is ridiculous. I literally sit though studies and just itch and itch like a crazy lunatic. It's just my legs. I have no clue why, and it's not like there is a rash or anything. Maybe you can research this for me. It could also be the water, I have tried not using soap, but I still itch like crazy. It started in Mexico and it's still a problem.

Anyway, away from awkward topics (Oh, I figured out the word for awkward in Spanish!!!!) I really do like my companion, we have had fun. She is a cookiemaker and I am the brownie, banana cake, and pasta maker. When we have a special lesson or birthdays or Noche de Hogar (FHE) we use our baking skills. It is rather fun. We have one tonight with a family of recent converts. Haha, speaking of recent converts, there are two companionships of hermanas in our ward. The other hermanas had a bautismo this Saturday. It was awesome. This woman's sister and family are also in our ward and they are very active. The woman has been investigating the church for 10 years! On Saturday, she was finally baptized. It was quite the affair. I tried so hard to be a mature missionary, but I had to laugh! It took four tries to get her into the water completely. We had our investigators, Ricardo and Gladys, there and he was about ready to jump in and help push her under. It was entertaining. Ricardo wants to be baptized so bad, but they are still not living the law of chastity. AHHH... but they are both coming to church every week and I think that we are going to get them there. They are so sweet. We have a lesson with them every Wednesday at 7:30. He is from Brazil and is only here and learning Spanish for Gladys. Lucky for me he is also sooo soooo intelligent and he knows English! To help us learn Spanish, he bought us each all of the CD's of hymns in Spanish. It's so funny, he literally spends more time every week in the distribution center than in the supermarket. He owns about every book the church has ever published including Preach my Gospel, the Missionary Handbook, etc. He knows the mission rules better than I do! The bad part about this desire to learn is that it leads people to the internet, where they sometimes find things that are damaging...NO bueno!

As for others things this week, our ward mission leader gave us the name of a friend or acquiantance, not sure which. Anyway, we went to find her and found her mom instead. She said she was busy and invited us to return later in the week. We did and she told us that she had talked with missionaries before and that they had just stopped coming. She told us that she had been praying they would come back...and here we were. It was so exciting! My companion started sharing lesson one and we were talking about the restoration and the BOM and profetas. It was great, but I had an impression that she already knew these things. I asked her is she had read and prayed. Her answer was a definate yes. She has a very strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and she knows that she can, and how to, talk to her Father in Heaven! We are trying to get her to church. I don't think there is a husband in the picture and she is working to support her family. She owns a lavanderia (I don't remember the name in English...yay!) and she has a lot of commitments on Sundays. We are trying to help her realize that she will be blessed for her sacrifice, but I am learning that is it very difficult to pull people away from what they know.

As for Sarah, tell her to take flash drives to store her pictures. As many as she can! I have been looking like crazy. I am so afraid of losing my pictures or my camera. I want a backup plan!!! I hope all is well. Did anyone else get a deer or elk? How is everyone's health? Anyway, Love ya lots.

Hermana Thacker